


Unusual Sites of Injury

by ivyspinners



Category: Psy-Changeling - Nalini Singh
Genre: Gen, Gen Mini-Fic Exchange, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 10:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4518804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyspinners/pseuds/ivyspinners
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To say they are being "taught" is not a euphemism. It is closer to a lie, and Walker is tired of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unusual Sites of Injury

**Author's Note:**

> For multi-genfic [Narrative Challenge Bingo](http://multi-genfic.livejournal.com/11981.html). Card 7, _innuendo_. Further book 14 feelings, I guess. I'm using "innuendo" in the widest sense possible, i.e. _allusions to something_ , because apparently I can't write it gen otherwise.

At the end of his first month teaching at this secretive school, Walker keeps one girl and two boys back after the lesson ends. It is late afternoon, and so warm it pricks at the years of protocol that make him stand straight and unrelenting. It is unnerving that these children, none over nine years old, sit stiffly as they write lines. Walker had hoped they would give up and fall asleep. Psy children are well-behaved, but this is more.

He learns from that first afternoon. The next time, Walker simply orders the children to curl up and close their eyes, and it seems they needed only that permission. They are very obedient. Walker sits at his desk planning his next lesson, entering the tools he will need, and though Psy do not feel, something in him settles at the rhythmic, slow breathing of these children.

The third time, Walker sees physical proof. Bruises sliding into view beneath a boy's collar, as wind rustles through an open window. The lesson has not yet ended. The students are on the ground, eyes closed; Walker told them to listen to flow of air, ordered them to lie down in order to concentrate, and left it at that.

"An unusual site of injury," Walker says, voice low. The room is so quiet no one has trouble hearing, but some have already lost the struggle to stay awake.

"It was an important lesson," the boy says, slanted eyes not even flickering. "Not an unusual one." Of all the boys in the class, Aden is the most contained. The other boys do not answer his questions; Aden deflects them altogether, but he needs years yet before Walker is fooled.

He is not allowed to keep his students after class for two weeks after that. They have a set of assignments, and if he is to punish them, there are ways of doing it in a time-efficient manner. Or perhaps, he is told, the teaching itself should be conducted in a more time-efficient manner, so the boys can return to the vital lessons.

The ice in his veins threatens to melt when Walker considers the next step, removing his teaching altogether, and he says, "These boys will not be strong enough for those lessons, if they do not receive this one."

It is true, in many ways. It is also true they would not survive for those lessons, either.

Aden can barely keep his eyes open, the next time Walker has that class as the last of the day, and the supposed assignment has been completed. He still refuses to stay behind.

"I stayed awake," he points out. "Caden and Mica didn't." When he walks to the door, Walker has the impression of slow, shallow breathing, but Aden's movements give nothing away. Aden, he thinks, is six years old.

"Do you have another important lesson now?" Walker asks.

"No," Aden says. "We have training next."

Walker watches him, wonders what the punishment for lateness would be, and says, "I'm keeping Caden and Mica. They need more work with me."

"I'll tell the teachers," Aden says, and again it's unspoken, but Walker understands. To tell the trainers, so Caden and Mica can sleep, Aden will leave. And quiet though Aden's gift is, it is too obviously well-controlled for Walker to make him stay back regardless.

Weeks, months, pass. His students have lessons, tutorials, and assignments that make it difficult to so much as hold a pen.

To say they are being "taught" is not a euphemism. It is closer to a lie, and Walker is tired of it.

But if he leaves, so does this half an hour.

So Walker stays until he's told he's done enough.

(He never managed, Walker thinks, to do enough.)

fin.


End file.
